On the 24th March, 1565, four months before the Darnley marriage, though the prospective bridegroom was already in Scotland, a servant of the Lennoxes, named Fowler, came to Guzman in London with a letter from Mary Queen of Scots. He had been sent from Scotland, he said, by the Queen, ostensibly to obtain from Elizabeth a passport for Secretary Lethington to visit England, but really to ask the Spanish ambassador whether he had instructions to discuss with her a certain business that had formerly been broached to King Philip through his predecessor, Bishop Quadra, as if so she would send Lethington to see him. Guzman did not know Mary’s handwriting and was suspicious, especially as he was aware that Don Carlos could on no account marry Mary; so that Fowler, who said he could not return to Scotland without an answer, proposed to prove his _bonâ fides_ by showing his mistress’s letter to Luis de Paz, a Spanish merchant, who knew her handwriting. On the morrow Guzman was satisfied of Fowler’s honesty, and as he heard alarming news of a plan to marry Mary to her French brother-in-law, he hesitated no longer but sent the messenger Fowler back to Scotland with a letter for Mary, asking her to send Lethington to confer with him. A few days afterwards Guzman got a further hint from Darnley’s mother, the Countess of Lennox, of what was really in the wind. She sent to tell him how kind Mary was to her son in Scotland, and that the French ambassador had come to her promising all French help and support to Darnley if the Queen of Scots married him. The Countess in her message to Guzman affected to distrust this French offer, which probably she herself had invented, “as she knows the French way of dealing,” and said “that she and her children had no other refuge but the King of Spain, to whom she and they will ever remain faithful. She begs me to address your Majesty in their favour, so that in case the Queen of Scots should open negotiations about Lord Darnley, or in the event of this Queen’s death, they may look to your Majesty for support.” A week or two later the Countess of Lennox returned to the charge. She prayed Guzman to assure Lethington, when he arrived in London, “that your Majesty desired to favour her, as she believes that it would help her son’s business very much. She thinks he may marry the Queen of Scots, who rests her claim to this country more on the support of your Majesty than on anything else, especially as the Queen-mother of France is very much against her.” This seemed to Guzman important, and he did his best to assure Lady Lennox by hints of the sympathy that Mary and Darnley might expect from Spain. “As I have said on many occasions,” he continued in his letter to Philip, “it should be borne in mind that, in addition to the Queen of Scotland’s great claims to this realm, she has certainly here a very strong party, and it is highly desirable in many respects that she should be reckoned